From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/31077 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Russ Allbery Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: Improved (non-annoying) underlining Date: 18 May 2000 21:56:04 -0700 Organization: The Eyrie Sender: owner-ding@hpc.uh.edu Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: coloc-standby.netfonds.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1035167528 12000 80.91.224.250 (21 Oct 2002 02:32:08 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 02:32:08 +0000 (UTC) Return-Path: Original-Received: from lisa.math.uh.edu (lisa.math.uh.edu [129.7.128.49]) by mailhost.sclp.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 36B4ED051E for ; Fri, 19 May 2000 00:56:29 -0400 (EDT) Original-Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu (lists@Sina.HPC.UH.EDU [129.7.3.5]) by lisa.math.uh.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id XAB19226; Thu, 18 May 2000 23:56:27 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: by sina.hpc.uh.edu (TLB v0.09a (1.20 tibbs 1996/10/09 22:03:07)); Thu, 18 May 2000 23:55:54 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: from mailhost.sclp.com (postfix@sclp3.sclp.com [204.252.123.139]) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id XAA24711 for ; Thu, 18 May 2000 23:55:46 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: from windlord.stanford.edu (windlord.Stanford.EDU [171.64.12.23]) by mailhost.sclp.com (Postfix) with SMTP id 598FBD051E for ; Fri, 19 May 2000 00:56:06 -0400 (EDT) Original-Received: (qmail 24852 invoked by uid 50); 19 May 2000 04:56:04 -0000 Original-To: ding@gnus.org In-Reply-To: Karl Kleinpaste's message of "18 May 2000 21:41:16 -0400" Original-Lines: 26 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0802 (Gnus v5.8.2) XEmacs/21.1 (Biscayne) Precedence: list X-Majordomo: 1.94.jlt7 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:31077 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general:31077 Karl Kleinpaste writes: > So _this_ /kind/ of *emphasis* is the "ASCII art" way of _*showing*_ > _/real/_ */typographical/* _*/variation/*_. Well, no, actually, it's not. It may have started that way, but it's become a language in its own right. Saying *strong* is not the same thing as a bold "strong" or an italic "strong," just like an underlined "strong" isn't the same thing as an italic "strong" (although it's sometimes used as an approximation). It's no longer ASCII art, although it may once have been. It's punctuation now, just like smilies are, punctuation that imparts inflection. I use it as punctuation, and think of it as punctuation; when I write *strong*, I'm not thinking "I want a bold 'strong' here but I can't do that in plain text." I'm actually expressing a verbal inflection, and I read *strong* directly as representing that verbal inflection. It may be possible to impart the same inflection ranges via more traditional typographic techniques, but I think it's a massive and mistaken simplification to claim that _word_ or *word* is nothing more or less than an ugly way of indicating underline, italic, or bold. Over the past twenty years of on-line culture, it's become it's own thing, separate from typographical conventions. -- Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu)